


One More Time

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-15
Updated: 2005-03-18
Packaged: 2018-12-27 05:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12074403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Justin is a DJ working his way into the club scene.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

Location: Apartment of Daphne and Justin

Time: 1:36pm

Status: Comatose, But not for long...

“Justin”

“....”

“Wake up.”

“Mm, five more minutes mom.”

Daphne pulled the sheets of her roommate sharply, exposing him to the chilly morning air. Justin’s face scrunched up in protest and his toes curled up into his thighs, desperately trying to rekindle his lost body heat. His eyes did not open.

Daphne knew that he had been up most of last night working on his computer. His keyboard that was wired to his computer had a collection of cups and plates surrounding it. He was always doing things like that, working on his songs all night when he knew he had a gig the following evening. 

She decided to punish his idiocy by sticking her hands in her morning coffee and flicking the warm liquid on to her friend. He twitched though he still did not move. She rolled her eyes; well if torture didn’t work she’d have to try bribery.   
She started slinging out seemingly random words towards his dozing head. To most they would make no sense, but for Justin there inspired phenomenal physical change.

“Dance”

He started squirming.

“Music”

“Gig”

He made a soft noise begging for more sleep.

“Money”

“Babylon”

His eyes shot open, turning towards his smirking roommate, he gave his best 'I just woke up and it's all your fault' glare.

“You’re evil.” He stated. 

“You did it to yourself dear.”

“Hmph”

“Now get up and have lunch, it’s to late for breakfast. You have to be at the club by 5 to set up, that’ll give you enough time to shower and transfer your songs, because knowing you they’re still in software, am I right?”

“I was getting to it but I fell asleep, I had to finish Epitone first and Rapture Mix 4 wasn't sinking right.”

“Uh, you are the worst perfectionist, Justin! The songs are great, accept it.”

"Daph" Justin sat up and swirled his feet to the hard wood floor with a soft thump.

"My songs are like my children."

Daphne stared at Justin blankly woundering if that was supposed to mean something to her.

"I don't want them to grow up."

"Oh, you sap!" 

"I know, I can't help it. Please save me, Daph. I need protection from myself and others."

Daphne rolled her eyes.

"Come on music boy, lets get you some lunch."

Justin smiled his speacial smile that only appeared with the mention of food.

"Yes, Food!"

They moved into the kitchen and began preparing for Justin's formal debut as a professional DJ at Pittsburg’s best, gay dance club.


	2. One More Time

Location: Liberty Avenue

Time: 4:12pm

Status: Walking to Babylon. Note: Quick detour for bagels.

 

"So, I was like 'On a scale of one to ten, exactly how illegal will this be?’. She told me,"

"Ow!"

"No that's not it she, Oh Justin! What happened? Are you ok?"

Justin was kneeling over clutching his nose

"I'hm fime!"

He was definitely not telling her he’d walked straight into a lamp post, distracted by looking at the unspeakably gorgeous brunette across the street. Justin removed his hands from his face as the sting settled to a dull throb. Shaking of Daphne's concerns and the questions that came with it. He started walking again though more wobbly than before.

"Stupid post, why'd they put it there were anyone could run into it."

Oops, gave himself away. At least not entirely.

"Why'd you do that?" Daphne asked when she was again walking beside him.

Danger! Not good. Must not let full extent of stupidity be known. Um, distraction!

"Look, books."

Daphne just stared at him and blinked. Not working, need bigger distraction.

"Look, cute boys kissing."

Success!

Justin smiled, straight woman where a mystery, but through living with one for the past 2 years he had learned some interesting and not well known facts.

"So I'll go get our bagels now."

"Mm"

"I'll just get curry on yours."

"Uh huh"

"And you'll give me all your money?"

"Sure"

"Excellent, I'll be right back."

Such as, in some ways, how shockingly similar they are to straight men. Just cross out lesbians and stick in gay guys. Now where did that brunette go? Looking around he couldn't see him anywhere. That was most disappointing. Frowning, he walked into the bakery, and there he was.

When the hell did he cross the street? How could he not have not noticed? He should have felt his radiating hotness moving closer. Curses! He must be losing my touch. Oooo, he's talking. He has such a soft grumbling voice, it's like velvet. He must be a singer, and then we can jam together late into the night and fall asleep huddled over song lyrics and music sheets, and then he could huddle closer and fondle his manly body, and he would awaken under Justin’s touch, and look wantomly into his eyes and lean forward slowly closing his eyes and..

He's gone.

Justin swirled around where he stood, scanning his line of sight for the object of his fantasies. He was no wear to be found. Justin's heart sank just a little. 

Curse this run away imagination of his! 

He let out an short rawr of frustration, and stomped his way outside the shop to meet the waiting Daphne.

"So where's my bagel?"

He looked at her like that was the least significant thing she could have uttered at that point in time, to him it was.

Glaring into space he muttered under his breath.

"They didn't have any curry."

Daphne made a face.

"Curry? I hate curry!"


	3. One More Time

Location: Babylon, DJ Booth.

Time: 10:56pm

Status: Kickin Ass

He was so freaking cool. Spinning the mix, pushing the slides. He’d done most of the work at home. This was his chance to show of all his hard work and brilliant skills. Oh no, missed the scynth by half a sec, gotta fix it. That's better, he couldn’t screw this up, this is his big chance. He had to show them all what I could do. He could not fail. Justin looked down to see Daphne grooving out on the dance floor. She moved perfectly with the music because she's heard all his stuff a million times before. The other dancers don't look as comfortable. 

It's not what they're used to. They'd start dancing and bring out familiar moves, but then the song would move in a new direction that they hadn’t heard before, and the movement would end up looking awkward and out of place. The more experienced dancers seemed to see it as a challenge, a small number have given up and where sitting on the sidelines drenched in sweat. The rest were to high to care, they'd just move any way that feels good and hope they don't take out any eyes.

Justin would admit his style was a little different then the usual dance club stuff, but he was careful to pick songs that would not seem totally out of place here. 

It's all techno. 

He wondered if the crowd would mind that some songs are in different languages? he hadn't thought of that. Justin tingled as he felt the presence of a person behind him. Please don't let it be that creepy owner guy. What was his name? Some hippy name. Tree Sap? He feel a sharp thump against his shoulder and turn with a gasp. 

"Daphne!"

Okay, he could start breathing again. Aww his coke was all over the floor now. Why did he have to jolt so hard in fear?

"Never, ever do that, you made me spill my drink."

She just smirked in that smug little way that he hated. Like he was an annoying wind up toy she could smash but couldn’t be bothered.

"Chill, it's 12, breaktime. Wake up your muscles and get some more drinks. I'll watch the booth."

He instinctively went into protective mode and leered predatorly. Sliding his gaze between her, the the turners rythmicly. Daphne had been with him since he got my first keyboard, and it's not like he didn't trust her, or that he was the jelous type. He just didn't like people touching his things."

She could of course, read him like a bad romance novel and gave him more of that fucking look while leaning him towards the steps that lead down to the main floor of the club. She knew that sometimes, he just needed a little push, towards a more sane way of thinking.

So the sets was halfway done and so far no one has screamed for the bad noise to go away. He must not be doing to badly then, but it's hard work and he had to really concentrate. Which was not easy when you have other things on your mind. The incident on the way here had been doing the rounds in his head all. He'd think about it, then push it from his mind, and then about an hour later it would pop back up out of nowhere. It felt like like mind is stuck on repeat. Walking down the steps from the DJ booth, Justin squeezed his way amongst the patrons to the bar.

At the counter, he signaled the bartender for a Coke. He had to keep away from the alcohol while working. Looking up towards the DJ booth he tried to see if the girl was breathing to close to the control panel. How Soon Is Now was just melting in. He'd taken parts from two bands versions of the song and welded them together in a kind of topsy turvy duet. The artists would never come up with an idea that good. His drink was slid across to him and it slapped into his hand. Damn, he’d forgotten Daphne's drink. He signalled for another.

"Hi, how you doing?"

Turning to his left Justin saw a man, about his height, with dark hair and a pointy face. He looked a fair bit older but didn't have that nasty old man air about him that most older guys that hit on him did.

This was the first person he had met inside the club, so he decided to take this opportunity to find out what the crowd thought of his stuff.

"Do you like the music?"

The man looked shocked that Justin had spoken back to him. Justin got the feeling that he was turned down a lot.

"Er, it's alright erm.. I thought that version of Madam Butterfly earlier was.. um.. different."

That wasn't a bad of a review. He’d talk to him for a little bit as a reward, he seemed lonely.

"Yeah, the last song is the best, just when her husband returns and he looks at her dieing. I think she seems really confused then."

The man's eyes lights up and he starts prattling on seemlessly about how Justin had it wrong and what it really meant. Justin wondered what this guy was doing in a place like Babylon. He could hardly get a word in and the guy had been talking for two minutes when Daphne sent Justin a text saying it was time to get back to work. Breaking more forcefully into the man’s speech Justin explained.

"I have to go back to work."

"Oh, are you a gogo boy?"

He looked Justin up and down. He wore a pair of jeans and a sweater wrapped around his hips to keep them from sagging. No shirt and no jewelery besides his nipple ring. When Justin worked he liked to be comfortable. On his back was a large magic marker tattoo of a phoenix a friend had done Friday, it was supposed to be 'for luck' for his audition job at Babylon.   
Picking up the drinks that were waiting on the counter Justin pushed of from the bar.

"No"

Heh. He’d keep him guessing. He moved into the crowd and was swallowed by it before the man could see wear he was going.


	4. One More Time

Location: Home

Time: Afternoon

Status: Sticky

Justin woke up at three o’clock in the afternoon. Not a bad time considering he went to sleep close to six am. He was already out of bed when Daphne walked in with a cup of coffee. Justin was fingering through his old fashioned Compact Disc collection. To someone who buys, sells and creates all his own music on computer, anything bought in hard copy is considered out of date. Pulling out one of his favourites, Justin inserted it into his computer and brought it up in his main media player. Unplugging the headphones from the speakers the song intro started up and Daphne groaned.

“You are so weird, it’s like a whole new definition of the word.” She growled above the volume. 

Smirking, Justin lowered the volume control. They had a long standing debate on what could be considered music and what was simply pretty noise. 

“Come on, it’s good.” He plopped down beside her and started sniffing around her coffee, it smelled good. 

“There not even real Lesbians. Not even Bisexual. They’re Fakes.” 

He had the target in his site. Just need to work out the right angel to tilt it with minimum spillage on his sheets and maximum coffee in his mouth. 

“Fakes with a great sound team.” And go!

Yes. He’d successfully tilted Daphne’s cup into his mouth while she was studying his TATU poster, just like she did every day. Only four drops on his Ying Yang bed sheets. She didn’t even notice, he was improving his technique. 

Mmm, good coffee.

“So go worship there sound team, and take the stupid poster down, it’s embarrassing.”

“Go look at your own walls.”

“And leave you to wake up in your own time? You’d sleep like, twenty four hours at a time.”

“Don’t exaggerate, it’d only be about half that.”

Rolling her eye’s Daphne placed her cup (with less in it then she remembered there being) on Justin’s desk top between the numerous dishes already there (she’d swear half the kitchen was in here.) and lay back on Justin’s bed. 

“So who was the guy at the bar last night?” 

“Just a test bunny.” That was there term for someone picked at random to hit on for the soul purpose of asking randomly for reviews of Justin’s music. 

Reaching her arm forward Daphne let her fingertips flutter along the edges of the Gryphon design on Justin’s back. The paints had run last night from all the heat and sweat. Justin curled a little further in on himself. He knew what Daphne meant.

“I don’t need a boyfriend Daph.” He turned to face her, showing how serious he was.

She just gave him that sympathetic look that only crosses from someone who has a partner to someone without one. Phychologically she knew that it was possible to function without another person, but she was in love and that meant her best friend had to be in love too so he could be as happy as she was. 

“Take a shower.” She ordered, getting up and grabbing her coffee. Walking towards the door. “You stink.”

Grabbing a towel from the hall closet she tossed it at him, covering his face in pink fluffy towelness. When she was out of sight Justin stopped his CD, ejected and placed it carefully back in it’s case, then in it’s alphabetical slot on the CD tower.

Curious he lifted an arm and stuck his nose in his armpit. Oh OK, ew, bad, bad smell. Shower seriously needed. Grabbing the towel he walked into the bathroom and started up the shower. 

Letting the water run Justin twisted infront of the mirror, trying to see the drawing on his back. It had run slightly in black rivulets down his skin. He was sad to see it go, it was really beautiful and he felt it had given him luck last night. Pushing down the pants he’d slept in Justin studied his body. Maybe he could get it done as a tattoo, Blain would love the free advertising. Design students were whores that way. 

Getting in the shower the hot water stung his sensitive skin making him wince and jump. Maybe not a permanent tattoo then, there where other ways. He could get it done in henna, that was fairly painless and could last for weeks. It would be a dark orange colour though, not black like ink or the marker had been. 

Shaking his head the water splashed across the shower’s glass door. Time to think about work, someone from the club was going to call him tomorrow morning with word on how his debut was taken, judging on that they would decide if they still required his services. He felt things had gone well last night. By four am most had left or where getting ready to leave. He’d had no complaints. 

By the time the music had stopped for the night, Justin was exhausted. An all nighter would take a lot out of anyone. Usually a night at a club is taken in shifts atleast two DJ’s, but because some of there regulars had skipped town and they were desperate they’d taken a chance on Justin. Being a new name he’d had to prove himself by going beyond what was normally asked. 

Wondering made his guts ache, he had to stay positive, he had to believe that DJ Sunshine was good enough for them. He wouldn’t allow himself to think any other way about it, if he did he’d probably throw up. 

Today was going to be the hardest part. Daphne was of to spend the night with her boyfriend, a guy named Joe, an openly bisexual accounting major who liked to pinch Justin’s butt, made great french toast and could make Daphne scream like the universe was ending most nights he stayed over. She’d go to school with him tomorrow taking her car, leaving Justin to catch the bus to school, if he could really call it a schoo. To floors, one for music another for art wasn't exactly PIFA.

When he’d finished showering, and the black ink running down the drain around his feet had given way to clear water, Justin got out and drying of, walked into the living room. Daphne was on the couch with a full backpack at her feet, watching Daredevil. Justin wrapped the towel securely around his waist and sat down beside her.

“So when are you going to Joe’s?”

Daphne didn’t look away from the screen.

“He’s picking me up.” 

Joe got wheels? Did this mean Justin got to play with Daphne’s car? 

“Since when does he have a car?” Justin leaned forward and picked up the remote. 

“Since monday, you should see him, he’s so proud of himself.”

“For buying a car?”

Justin fast forwarded the hetero sex scene.

“I don’t know, he just spends a lot of time rubbing it with a cloth and whispering to it. I think I’m jealous.”

“What kind is it?”

“Red.”

Rolling his eye’s Justin hits play as Matt Merdock enters the fancy party and meets the Kingpin. 

A knock at the door drawers there attention. Daphne get’s up with a smile.

“That’ll be your motorsexual lover.”

She walked back specifically to slap the back of his head before going back to open the front door.

Switching of the movie Justin got up and walked past the happy lovers, greeting each other in a very happy lovers kind of way. Before he forgot Justin turned to Daphne and decided to ask her while she was distracted.

“Does this mean I can use your car?”

“Mmmmhmmmm” Daphne mumbled around Joe’s face. Joe lifted one hand from Daphne’s back to give Justin a thumbs up. Signalling that Daphne was ok with that. Nodding Justin walked down the hall into his room and closed the door. Not thinking about how nice it would be if he had someone to be happy lovers with.


	5. One More Time

Location: School

Time: 9:06am

Status: Considering becoming a motorsexual.

Daphne’s car was very boring looking, but it could go really, really fast. Of course, Justin would never make it go really, really fast. Because he was not a delinquent but a responsible, young adult. So he only burned out the tires once as he left the street and after that he was like a saint all the way to school. 

On the drive over, he thought about things. He did not worry, because worrying was unproductive and distracted him from what was important. Like Qui Gon said, ‘Be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment.’ Jedi Knights were so cool, he had to rent that movie again. 

He pulled into the parking garage opposit Discovery Sounds, a local recording company that had discovered they could get several large government grants if they took in helpless music students, and taught them how to work for them for minimum wage, while pretending to learn the inner workings of professional music. 

Once inside, he hung up his winter coat, and climbed the two flights of stairs to the school’s level. Half way up the stairs he had to go to the bathroom. He opted to stop and use the one on the first floor, it was a private investigators office. He liked to go in there whenever he had an excuse because of a deep seated childhood belief, that lots of interesting things happened around P.I’s. So far the most interesting thing to happen was that a man had been crying in a chair once, when he’d come in and had proceeded to collapse onto Justin and sob loudly about some photo’s of his wife sitting in a cafe with another man. 

Jillian, one of the three partners who owned the business, came in and prized him of Justin and sat him down forcefully into one of the waiting chairs. She gave him a simple statement about jumping to conclusions and even if those conclusions were founded it was all his fault for letting his marriage get to that state. She didn’t use big words Jillian, but her tone was so forceful that Justin felt she could convince a lawyer to “not twist words, because it’s wrong!”. Since that time nothing so interesting had popped up, but Justin still had hope that one day he would walk in on a ninja assassin and Richard in the middle of a heated battle over the life of a helpless client, if only for a change a pace.

Opening the door, Justin peeked in and saw the only change was a new box of doughnuts on the coffee table. Chris must be here already, he was always the first to arrive. Chris’s office door was shut so Justin sneaked by it on tip toe and silently slipped into the bathroom. Of the three investigators, Chris definitely liked him the least. He was an older ex-cop, who Justin suspected left the force to escape the mandatory therapy sessions. He claimed it was because he got bored with it, which was stupid because he was the most chronically boring person Justin knew. 

Slipping out of the bathroom, he slid across the floor and out the door. Closing it behind him, he thought he heard the sound of Chris’s boomerang slicing through the air next to the door. That thing gave him the creeps. Shivering he sped up the stairs and entered Discovery. 

Today they would be doing recording, which was both a good and bad thing. Good because it meant he would be helping with the live recording and mixing, and bad because it was boring. Contrary to popular belief, recording a song was not at all interesting. First they would take down one part of the song, the base, the vocals, they had to do each part individually. This would take at the very least, 5 tries to get perfect. Then they fiddled with it in every way imaginable to see what would make it sound best, then repeat this with all parts for every 3 seconds of music. When it’s done, if it still doesn't sound right, you have to go over it all again. Justin made his own music so he was used to the work, but at least he didn’t have to deal with other people while doing it. 

Put on top of all that, moody artists, time budgets, faulty equipment, generally being overworked and grouchyness, it could be hard. But it wasn’t all bad, some days things went really wrong and others things went really right. It generally depended on who you where working with. 

Justin opened the door of the big studio, where they did all the live recordings, and checked out who he’d be working with today. Okay, there was Erika, Benji, Jamie and Mr Patrick today. Not too bad, Benji and Jamie would take a really long lunch break and Erika would try to read his palm again but atleast Ethan wasn’t here. He didn’t feel like getting chatted up today, he had to much to do. Shit, the brunette he saw yesterday just popped up in his head again. That shouldn’t be happening, the whole point of 12 hour crushes was that they ended after 12 hours. It got worse as images of Daphne, happy in love, filled his head like a whale song. Soft and whining and unstopable. 

Shaking his head to clear it, he sat down next to Mr Patrick at the tables and checked that everything was turned on and that all the right buttons where flashing. Erika was helping the artists in the booth with the mic, telling them what cords not to step on if they wanted to live, that kind of stuff. She must have said something weird, like she always did. Because the 3 young men in the booth with her started staring at her before turning to each other with questioning looks. Erika came out of the booth and sat down on Justin’s other side.

“The blonde’s gonna leave for a group with a record deal soon.” 

She picked up a textbook on synthisiser wiring and started flipping through it like a magazine. Justin would have groaned but he was to used to her inner weirdness.

“Did you have to tell them that?”

“I didn’t, I just told them we don’t allow smoking in the building.”

Erika looked slyly at his way through slitted eyes. Justin smiled back openly. He knew there was a reason why he liked her occasionally. 

“Musicians.” He muttered.

They where both fighting grins when Benji came in complaining about being all alone in the little studio. Mr Patrick told him to fuck off very politely and they finally got to work.


End file.
